Comments on: Final release of Windows Phone developer tools: September 16

By: Paul Thurrott

Paul Thurrott — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:17:41 +0000

I do look at it from the developer’s standpoint. This is a new platform. If we waited for Microsoft to do what they usually do, the thing wouldn’t ship until next year. This is preferable.

And they’re not last in the race. Palm is.

By: lsobrado

lsobrado — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:38:38 +0000

Well Paul, you need to look at it from a developer’s perspective. Duplicating work that MS should do costs us money. Re testing once their components ship costs money, and the code needs to be tested and finalized before store submision. I’d have less of a problem if we had gotten tech previews or betas so we could at least get something.

I don’t mean to say they haven’t done a good job but they are hardly in a position to not even have a combo box a mere weeks before launch, much less not even allow developers enough time to make sure their apps work with their native controls.

They are currently last in the race and this type of delays doesn’t help their developer story. Just saying…

By: maxxorz

maxxorz — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:52:33 +0000

I think that if you’ve gotten to the point where all you need to add is panorama and pivot controls to add to your app, then I don’t see it being that difficult to implement them in the two weeks between the release of the gold version of the tools and when they open up the market place for app submissions.

By: Paul Thurrott

Paul Thurrott — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:38:46 +0000

I don’t see this as a huge problem, honestly. It’s a brand new platform. Nothing is “late.” They’ve done a stellar job delivering what they promised here.

By: lsobrado

lsobrado — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:05:33 +0000

I feel let down by microsoft once again. You read their UI guideliness for wp7 and they keep telling you that you should try to make your app look and bahave like the outter OS. yet they fail to provide you with the panorama and pivot until a mere few weeks before the device ships. They also do not have combo boxes even though they use them in their own apps (like the theme selector)

we didn’t even get a beta/alpha preview of the controls to at least get our app tested. we’ll have to scramble like everybody else. Thankfully the community pulled together and there are several pivot and panorama controls floating on the web as a bandaid for what is otherwise an inexcusable failure from MS to deliver tools on time.

Paul, why does MS seem to have such huge problems delivering controls on time?. WPF lacked even basic controls like data grids for ages, and also lacked a visual designer to support them until later versions of VS08. The same thing happened with silverlight. It didn’t even have scrolling textboxes or right click support until several releases later not to mention lousy visual studio designer support (it was all bend). WPF still lacks a simple calendar control and you’re forced to go 3rd party or with the beta wpftoolkit. How can this be? Windows forms had pretty much every control from day one but this next generation technologies lacks just about every important control or deliver it YEARS after it was needed.

I can forgive once, twice, but now 3 times! c’on Microsoft. get your act together.

By: Paul Thurrott

Paul Thurrott — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:14:48 +0000

No, the book launches in October around the same time as Windows Phone.

By: arasheps

arasheps — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:36:42 +0000

Haha, reminds me of last year in germany, saying thanke instead of danke, german person replied Hah? i said i mean Danke! and she said Ach so (or something like that, akhso!)

By: achtungjamie

achtungjamie — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:54:09 +0000

We looking at a US launch in October then? I know there was some talk of WP7 hitting Europe first. Also does this mean book launch in September?

By: swarnock2525

swarnock2525 — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:48:53 +0000

should of bolded this part imo:

“In keeping with Microsoft’s commitment to an open process and transparent practices”

I don’t know yet what the changes are but these statements from Microsoft have been largely overlooked in the past 5 to 10 years.

By: gpsarakis

gpsarakis — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:17:19 +0000

Maybe I’m remembering it wrong but isn’t the release of IE9 Beta 1 close to that, if not the same day?

Anyways, this is good news, when they start taking apps for the marketplace in Oct we’ll get a good idea of how things are going to go. I can’t wait, hope the number is high.